The Purpose of the Church - Introduction (Acts 2:37-47)

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We are in need of volunteers for several different ministries both internally and externally:

We still need a replacement for our former treasurer who left for family health reasons—this person will need to be a member in good standing, they need to be able to count money efficiently, willing to talk to the bank on behalf of the church, able to utilize an online church management program, and needs to obviously be confidential in all financial matters. If you have an interest in serving in that way, please contact me ASAP

For internal ministries, we have several opportunities during church services that we need help with—I’d really like to have other people lead different portions of the service—more people to read Scripture, more people to lead in prayer, and we would really like to have the worship team grow with more singers and additional instruments. If you’d like to serve in any of these different ministries, please feel free to talk with Natalie ASAP.

For external ministries, we have several opportunities to help with outreach and evangelism. Some of that might be changing in the way that we do that, so let me just encourage you to speak with Natalie about it and she can help you get connected with it.

Our Call to Worship is Psalm 25, which is a little bit longer of a psalm, but it is David confidently turning to the LORD for divine instruction and forgiveness from his sins. The psalm is a meditation on the character of God and it is this meditation on who God is that prompts David to respond to the LORD with confession and prayer. Read with me Psalm 25, I’ll read the

So, if you have your Bible this morning, please turn to Acts 2:14-36. Leading up to this point in the text, in chapter 1, we see the ascension of the resurrected Jesus into heaven after Jesus declaring to the disciples that they would be his witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth; after which, the apostles themselves take some time to determine who should replace Judas Iscariot as an apostle. As Chapter 2 starts, we’re introduced to the day of Pentecost.

Pentecost was a Jewish holiday that celebrated the 50th day after Passover to celebrate the end of the harvest, but ever since Acts 2, Christians remember Pentecost as the day that the Holy Spirit descended from heaven and indwelled believers permanently for the first time in history. And after the indwelling of the Spirit and the initial results of the indwelling of the Spirit, Peter stands up and preaches a sermon. Our Scripture Reading from Acts 2:14-36 gives us that sermon, which will give us insight into what’s happening prior to the passage that we’ll be studying this morning.

Sermon

Introduction

As we jump into our sermon this morning, we really have to spend a little bit more time than normal in introductory matters. That’s typical anytime that you start a new series and starting a series on the Purpose of the Church is no different. We need to spend a few moments discussing some introductory information before we jump into our text. So, let’s do just that:

Many of us here have grown up attending church and many of us have attended several different churches throughout our lifetime. I myself grew up attending a Korean Presbyterian church in Columbus, Ohio and as a teenager started going to an independent Baptist church until my junior year of high school. Since that point, I have served at three different independent Baptist churches as a youth leader, deacon, and eventually a pastor and one Southern Baptist Church as an interim pastor; until I answered the call to plant Grace & Peace Bible Church, which is an independent non-denominational church.

So, throughout my life, I’ve been a part of many different churches, but that’s not always the case for everybody—in fact, I know some people that have grown up going to the same church and still attend that same church and that’s perfectly acceptable as long as they’re still growing spiritually, they’re serving within the church, and they’re utilizing their spiritual gifts. I say all of this, not because I want to lay out my life story in front of you, but rather, I want to point out that within those churches, I know for a fact that the majority of the people attending those churches had no clue what the biblical purpose of the church is. And I would posit, that in our own church, there are some that have no clue what the biblical purpose of a church is. Thus, this series is to help us focus in on a biblical definition of a church’s purpose.

As part of our introduction, let’s start at the beginning—what is the church? Many people today, when they think of the church, they actually think of a place or a building—which is why if someone were to talk to you about church, they would ask you where you go to church because in their mind, they’re equating church with the location itself. But the issue with that is that the church itself isn’t the building . In fact, if you study the New Testament, you find out that many of the churches in the New Testament were meeting in people’s homes because they didn’t have a building set aside for worshiping the LORD.

So, the church itself isn’t the building, so what exactly is it? And the best way for us to understand this is to look at the word that’s being translated from the Greek as church. That Greek word is the word ekklesia and it’s utilized all throughout the New Testament, but you wouldn’t notice it often, because it isn’t always translated as the church. This is notable, because there are people who would lead you to believe that the proper definition of the ekklesia is the “called out assembly of God” and they base that idea on the Greek prefix -ek and that’s actually a misunderstanding of Greek grammar.

The prefix -ek is sometimes utilized to mean “called out,” but in the case of the word ekklesia, the word itself is ekkles- not kles, which means that the -ek isn’t a prefix, it’s simply part of the word. So, the Bible utilizes the term ekklesia to define the church, but the word itself doesn’t always refer to the church. Evidence for this, is found in Acts 17: 16-34, when Paul is standing at the Areopagus to address the Athenians about their worship of false gods. The Bible, in that passage speaks of the group of unbelieving men that were rioting against Paul as an ekklesia, which clearly doesn’t mean that these men were a “called out assembly of God.” They were unbelievers who were rioting against the truth of God.

So, what exactly does an ekklesia mean? It means an assembly or a gathering of people. In our modern-day world, we take it typically to only ever refer to the church but throughout history, it wasn’t always the church. When the Bible does utilize the term ekklesia to mean the church, it means that there is a gathered group of people, or assembly, that have gathered together for a specific purpose. And it is that purpose that sets the church apart from other assembled gatherings.

What this series is designed to do is for us to gain a really solid idea of what the church’s actual purpose is. And let me help to make it clear from the offset of what that purpose is—the church is gathered and united on our confession of belief in Jesus Christ. Because we’re united in our belief on Jesus, we are to devote ourselves to doctrine, to fellowship with one another, to commune with God together, and to prayer.

Our passage for this morning, will emphasize the confession of belief in Jesus and it’ll introduce the four elements needed for an assembly to be a church—so consider this whole message for this morning as an introductory message for the whole series and then in the subsequent weeks, we’ll take one of those four elements and break it down, with our last week being focused more on our local church’s mission and core values. How the next month and half will look is like this:

Today, we’ll work on Acts 2 as an Introduction to the whole series

Next week, we’ll narrow in on what the Bible calls “the apostles’ teachings” or what we usually call Doctrine

The following week, we’ll focus on what it means for us to Fellowship with one another.

The fourth week, we’ll look at our communion together with God.

The fifth week, will focus on the necessity of prayer

And the final week, will look at our local context—how do we apply these different elements in our own church.

Before I continue, let’s take a moment to read the passage in Acts 2:37-47. After which, I’ll explain how we’ll break down the passage, we’ll pray, and then we’ll jump into Scripture.

Acts 2:37–47 ESV

37 Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” 38 And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” 40 And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” 41 So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls. 42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43 And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. 44 And all who believed were together and had all things in common. 45 And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

As we study this passage, we’re going to look at the passage in two parts, which will give us the primary purpose of the church. (1) Vs. 37-41, the Church is Built on a Confession, will look at what united the people in Acts 2 together. What made them a church? We’ll find that it’s really a confession of faith that unites the people together. (2) The second part, The church needs to be Devoted is Vs. 42-47, which shows us what exactly the people in the church did or what elements were necessary in the church along with the result of them being devoted to these certain elements. Both parts will give us an overview of what’s necessary for a group of people to be a church; and hopefully it encourages us to keep working on these elements in order for us all to grow spiritually.

Prayer for Illumination

The Church is Built on a Confession (37-41)

Starting in Vs. 37, we see the people’s reaction to Peter’s sermon. We read Peter’s sermon as part of our Scripture reading, but just to get a full idea of what he preached, let me just give you a little bit of an overview:

Starting in Vs. 14, we see Peter address the people of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem.

The purpose for him addressing them was because the people had just witnessed the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the apostles, which resulted in the apostles speaking in a way that each individual heard the apostles in their own language.

Each person could hear the apostles speak simultaneously in their native language, and the assumption was that the apostles were drunk. That’s how they could do something so miraculous, which is sort of a weird assumption, I’ve never met anyone who could get drunk and speak another language coherently, but nevertheless, that was the assumption and the accusation.

So, Peter addresses the people making this accusation and he explains that what they’ve witnessed was something that was prophesied in the prophet Joel.

He quotes from the prophet Joel, and then he tells the Israelite’s to listen to him—that Jesus of Nazareth, who did mighty works and miracles:

Was crucified and killed by those who were lawless

But God raised him from the dead in fulfillment of David’s psalm concerning the Messiah.

Unlike David, who died and was buried, Jesus was resurrected by God

And all who believe have received the Holy Spirit who has been poured out on the day of Pentecost as a promise from the Holy Spirit.

This is the message that Peter has proclaimed to the people—Jesus was born, he lived a perfect life in which he did miracles, he was crucified, buried, and then raised from the dead.

And Peter ends with this statement in Vs. 36, that all who are in Israel should know for certain that God made Jesus both Lord and Christ—or put simply Jesus has all authority and Jesus is the Messiah.

This simple message from Peter, in which he explains who Jesus is, what Jesus had done, and for what purpose he had done these things does something in the hearts of those who are listening. Vs 27, “Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?’”

The phrase here that’s translated as “cut to the heart,” we actually utilize a different word for. We utilize the word convicted—to be convicted very literally means to be “cut to the heart.” The people who had heard the message of Peter were convicted and their convictions led them to question what they ought to do.

True conviction always leads to action and the Bible says that these people were truly convicted—if your conviction doesn’t lead you to action, then your conviction isn’t as strong as you think it is.

It is this conviction that leads them to realize that they have to do something and it is something that they hadn’t done before.

Peter tells them in Vs. 38, to “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”

And we have to pause just momentarily on this verse, because there has been confusion over this verse for quite some time. What is that confusion about?

The confusion comes from the first phrase, “Repent and be baptized. . . for the forgiveness of your sins.”

Which to a lot of people, sounds like the Bible is saying that in order for your sins to be forgiven, you must repent and you must be baptized.

The issue is that the Bible is clear that salvation comes from repentance and belief in Jesus Christ, not baptism—consider Mark 1:14-15 in which “Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, and [says] ‘ the Time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.’” Or consider Romans 10:9-10, “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved.” Or even Ephesians 2:8-9, “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

None of these passages mention the need to be baptized for salvation. In fact, each of these passages are clear that only repentance and belief are necessary for salvation. So what are we to do with this seemingly contradictory passage in Acts 2?

Notice I said seemingly contradictory, because the passage itself isn’t contradictory. The issue is that when we look at the word for, we typically assume it means that you do these things in order to gain something.

So, you sleep for rest—you sleep to gain rest

Or you eat for sustenance—you eat to gain sustenance

Or you read for knowledge—you read to gain knowledge.

The issue is that this relies on only one definition of the word for. And if you were to take a dictionary, I chose Merriam-Webster’s dictionary since it is easily accessible for anyone who wants to check me on this, for actually has several definitions (17 to be exact).

In this sentence, for is a preposition, which means that five of these definitions can apply to the way that it’s utilized in the text

And if you look in Merriam-Webster’s dictionary at the word for under the definitions for prepositional uses of that word and go to the third sense, you’ll read two words:

Because of.

We could very literally read this passage to say, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ because of the forgiveness of your sins.”

Keeping this in mind and considering the fact that the word translated as and in “repent and be baptized” can also be translated as also instead of and.

It gives the distinct impression that the conviction that these people were experiencing should motivate them to repent for the forgiveness of their sins and then be baptized because of the forgiveness of their sins. Repent for salvation, be baptized because you’ve been saved.

The idea of repentance is a fundamental change of mind or what we might consider having a change of heart; and when utilized in a context like this, it very literally means that prior to your salvation you thought one way, now you need to think differently.

Paul says something similar in Ephesians 2:1-4, “You were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked . . . But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loves us, . . . made us alive together with Christ.”

What Peter is saying in Acts 2:38 is that you need to fundamentally be changed in the way you think—stop living in sin, believe in Jesus Christ, and then be baptized.

He says one more phrase in this sentence and it’s an important part of the sentence because it deals with everything that has happened during Pentecost and the coming of the Holy Spirit. The end of Vs. 38 “And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.”

The promise that is being spoken of in Vs. 39, is the promise of the coming Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit’s coming was first promised by Jesus in John 16:7-11.

Jesus says, “I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper [or the Holy Spirit] will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.”

It’s also repeated by Jesus in Acts 1:5 and 8, right before Jesus ascends into heaven, he says, “you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” AND “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

The coming of the Holy Spirit is the promise that Peter is talking about in Vs. 38 and he says that they will receive that Holy Spirit when they repent.

As part of their salvation, they will receive the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit will continue to do work within them. That type of work includes the:

Conviction of sins

Comfort in times of trouble

The sealing for the day of redemption those who truly believe in Jesus Christ

And even illuminating the Words of Scripture for our understanding.

There’s a reason why Jesus said it would be better for us to have the Holy Spirit and some of these are the reasons for that statement.

Vs. 40-41, then tells us that Peter continued to “bear witness and exhort them saying, ‘Save yourselves from this crooked generation.’ So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.”

So Peter, in one day’s worth of preaching and the Holy Spirit through his convicting work persuades over 3,000 people.

And their belief resulted in their baptisms.

That’s the initial starting point of the church. And what we see within those verses is that it is the confession of faith in Jesus Christ that started the church.

Why did these people determine to unite together as a body? Because of what Peter said during his sermon.

That Jesus is the Messiah, that he was crucified and killed; and that God raised him from the dead. That Jesus has been exalted and sits at the right hand of God with all authority, that God has made Jesus both Lord and Christ.

They agreed to unite together as one body, because they heard what Peter preached, they were convicted, they were cut to the heart, and true conviction motivates action

And the action that they needed to take was that they needed to repent from their former way of living and believe in Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins. The action that they needed to take was repentance, belief, and then because they had been saved, baptism.

They agreed to unite together because they understood that apart from Jesus Christ there is no remission of sin and without repentance and belief in him, they were utterly without hope.

Now that’s the starting point, but what we see in Vs. 42-47, was what the church, after agreeing to unite together over common beliefs, did. And it is clear that they were committed and devoted to these things because the Bible says that by doing these things, the “Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.” Let’s re-read Vs. 42-47.

The Church needs to be Devoted (42-47)

Acts 2:42–47 ESV

42 And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. 43 And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. 44 And all who believed were together and had all things in common. 45 And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. 46 And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, 47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.

Now there are certain aspects of this passage, particularly the first verse that I’m not going to emphasize today because we’re going to emphasize them heavily over the next four weeks, however it is important to note that these are the elements that the early church devoted themselves to and it was their devotion of these things that resulted in their growth. The Bible says in Vs. 42, “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of breads and the prayers.”

These four elements are what the early church committed themselves to and I would argue that for a church to be biblical in our modern-day, they also need to be committed to these four elements. Again, I’m not going to spend a lot of time over these today because we’ll be working through them individually over the next four weeks. However, Acts 2:42 tells us that the early church devoted themselves to four things:

They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teachings (or what we typically call doctrine)—there’s a mindset in a lot of modern-day churches that doctrine is dull or boring; and the typical idea is: “why should we look at all of the doctrine or theology? Just give me something simple and practical to use.” The issue with this mindset is a large portion of Scripture is dedicated to doctrine and since all Scripture is breathed out by God, we should be looking to understand and learn doctrine. Not only that, what we know as doctrine is what we believe; and what we believe controls our thoughts, actions, feelings, and emotions. Without right doctrine, we don’t even know if we actually believe in Jesus or not. Doctrine is vitally important, it’s no wonder that the teachings were the first thing mentioned in this list.

They devoted themselves to fellowship—and fellowship is a little bit of a loaded term, many of us utilize it so frequently that few of us actually know what it means. We typically refer to everything that we do outside of a church service as a group as fellowship. So, if we go to the movies, we’ll call it fellowship; or we go for lunch and we’ll call it fellowship; or we go to the Curve for a baseball game and we’ll call it fellowship. But simply doing these things isn’t actually fellowship. The word fellowship translates the Greek work koinonia. Koinonia comes from the idea of sharing with one another. What are we supposed to share with one another? The idea is that we’re supposed to share life with one another—So, going to the movies or going to lunch or going to a Curve game isn’t necessarily fellowship unless we intentionally try to share our lives with one another while we do these things. The point isn’t to just hang out, but rather for us to develop friendships and relationships with one another.

They devoted themselves to breaking of bread—which is Luke’s term for what Paul calls the Lord’s Supper, but it’s more than just taking the LORD’s Supper together. It’s everything that we’re supposed to do as we lead up to the Lord’s Supper—taking time to examine our hearts, checking to see if we’re living how God wants us to live, checking to see if we have sins hidden within, and making sure that our hearts are in line with God’s heart. It is the constant work to remind ourselves of our faith in Jesus Christ and our constant work to do as both Paul and Peter say, to ”examine [ourselves] to see whether you are in the faith” and to “be all the more diligent to confirm [our] calling and election.”

And they devoted themselves to prayer—and of course prayer is a huge topic, but this include multiple different types of prayer, whether that would be prayers of supplication, contrition, prayers of faith, or corporate prayer—the point is that they dedicated themselves to speaking to God both as individuals and as a community of believers.

Due to their commitment to teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayer, Vs. 43-44 tells us that they were filled with a sense of awe, the apostles did miracles and, in the case of the early church, they had all things in common.

That last point, that they had all things in common, isn’t concerning their personality or how they behaved. The last point of having all things in common was that they were doing as Vs. 45 says, “They were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need.”

It isn’t that their personalities were exactly the same, but rather that they were willing to care for one another even if it meant selling their personal possessions and giving to those in need at the church.

The point isn’t that they were giving to the needy, the point is that they were caring for one another. They had genuine concern and love for each other; and it was this genuine concern and love for each other that prompted them to sell off their excess and give the proceeds to those who needed the basics.

As this section of Acts 2 ends, we’re told that this devotion or commitment to teaching, fellowship, communion, and prayer was a daily commitment. Vs. 46, “And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.”

Howard Marshall, “The religious devotion of the early Christians was a daily affair.”

This wasn’t a weekend-only type of thing for them, they were focused on the worship of God together every single day.

Their worship extended to every day and every part of their day.

Now, just as a side-point you might be asking the question, “Why does the Bible say that they were still attending the temple together?”

There’s two reasons for their continued attendance to the temple in Jerusalem:

First off, there’s a certain amount of faithfulness to their Jewish heritage that’s seen in their willingness to continue going to the temple to worship the LORD.

Secondly, their presence in the temple evidences their zeal for proclaiming the Gospel to their friends and family. What we see as Acts continues is that one of the primary places that people would go to proclaim the Gospel was the temple itself.

Their willingness to go everyday evidences their zeal for witness.

They continuously worshiped the LORD together every day, they continuously sought to fellowship with one another, they broke bread together, they communed with God together.

And they did all of this with “glad and generous hearts.” They did all of this while “praising God.” And they did all of this, while still “having favor with all the people.”

Which simply means that as they sought to be the church of God, they did it in a way that they weren’t contentious towards other people, they did it in a way that was filled with gladness and generosity, they did it with hearts willing to worship and praise almighty God.

The result of which, is as Vs. 47 says, “the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.”

Our modern-day church culture thinks that we need to be attractional in nature. We need to only ever use upbeat, popular music for worship (preferably music heard on the radio), we need to offer the best and greatest of everything to draw in a crowd and entertain the people, we need to interest people with TedTalk-like sermons and we have to stay modern and hip; and that’s the only way we can get people to come to church.

The issue with this mindset though, is that Christianity isn’t modern and hip and no where in the Bible does it ever tell us to become more like the world in order to grow the church. We shouldn’t utilize only upbeat, popular music for worship (in fact, if you look at the psalms, you’ll see that a lot of Israel’s singing was more somber), we don’t need to offer the best and greatest of everything, the early church met in homes and simply did the best that they could.

We don’t need to interest people with TedTalk-like sermons; and doing those types of things only interest people who aren’t actually interested in God or have false ideas of who God is.

If we want our church to grow, the way that we do it is by devoting ourselves to the doctrine, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and through prayer.

If we want our church to grow, we have to have genuine care and concern for each other

We have to be worshiping the LORD every single day

And we have to have glad and generous hearts that praise God.

And then God will add to our number day by day those who are being saved.

The early church grew, not because they were hip and modern, not because they were attractive, in fact, in the first century people reviled you for being a Christian.

The early church grew, not because they utilized only the popular music and offered the best and greatest of everything to draw a crowd in.

The early church grew, not because they had a sleek pastor with a worldly preaching style that was more of a motivational speech than a sermon.

The early church grew because they were dedicated to the doctrine, they were dedicated to fellowship, they were dedicated to the breaking of bread, and they were dedicated to prayer.

The early church grew because they emphasized God—knowing him, being in communion with him, talking with him, and loving him; and they emphasized each other—knowing each other, sharing meals with each other, sharing life with one another, and loving each other.

The early church grew because they understood what unified them as a body and they understood their purpose as a church—they were unified by their common belief in Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior; and they understood that as a unified body of Jesus Christ they needed to know what they believe, they needed to fellowship with like-minded believers, and they needed to develop their relationship with God through communion and prayer.

So the question then is, how do we apply a passage like this to our lives today?

Application

The Church is Built on a Confession (37-41)—In the first section, we looked at the response of the people to Peter’s sermon on the day of Pentecost. We saw that the people were convicted or cut to the heart and their response to their conviction is to ask “what shall we do?” Peter tells them that they have to fundamentally change the way that they think or repent in order to be saved and that after they believe in Jesus, they would receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. As we studied that part of the text, I really emphasized one main point—that the church is built on their confession of faith in Jesus Christ. Because of that, I have two application points for you for this section of the text:

Repent and believe in Jesus Christ—because the church is built on the confession of belief in Jesus Christ, unless you actually have repented from your sins and believed in Jesus Christ, you aren’t part of the church.

You might come to church services, but without repentance and belief in Jesus, you aren’t actually a Christian.

And quite frankly, you could attend church your whole life and come to all the services and know what the right things are to believe, but until you repent of your sins, call out to Jesus, and believe in Him, you’re still unsaved.

It isn’t until you recognize Jesus as your LORD and Savior that you’re put into the church of God—because the church of God is built upon the confession of belief in Jesus Christ.

Thus, the first application point is quite simple—if you haven’t yet, repent from your sins and believe in Jesus Christ.

Know that the church only exists because we believe in Jesus as our LORD and as our Messiah—thus, everything that the church does has to be for Jesus, to Jesus, with Jesus, in Jesus, and because of Jesus.

Our church is not a country club to simply enjoy nor is it a business to be run—our church exists for the purpose of worshiping Jesus, equipping people to serve Jesus, and helping people to know Jesus.

Which means that everything that we do as a church, has to have a purpose and a reason—and we need to be able to explain why we do it. We’re should never do anything just because it’s a tradition or because it seems fun, we do all things as a church for Jesus, to Jesus, with Jesus, in Jesus, and because of Jesus.

This starts at the individual level. Meaning, the church can only do this if the individuals within the church are doing all things for Jesus, to Jesus, with Jesus, in Jesus, and because of Jesus. Because as a person, you were created to glorify Jesus Christ.

If the individuals within the church aren’t willing to give Jesus the preeminence due his name, the local church will never give Jesus the preeminence due his name. If the individual is unwilling to live under the authority of Jesus, the local church will never live under the authority of Jesus. If the individual is unwilling to glorify God with his life, the church will be unwilling to glorify God with her life.

Thus, the second application is this—live your life in such a way that you do all things for Jesus, to Jesus, with Jesus, in Jesus, and because of Jesus. You might ask, how do I do that? Jesus says in Matthew 22 that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength with the second commandment being to love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus also says in John 14:15, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Because you exist to glorify God—you are to love God, love others, and obey Jesus Christ. Because the church exists to glorify God—the church is to love God, love others, and obey Jesus Christ.

The Church needs to be Devoted (42-47)—in the final section, we see that the first century church devoted themselves to certain elements that are necessary for any church to be committed to. Every church needs to be committed to doctrine, every church needs to be committed to fellowship, every church needs to be committed to the breaking of bread, and every church needs to be committed to prayer. As such, every believer is to be committed to worshiping God every day with his people. That’s what makes a church grow. So, what is our application for this section?

Let’s start with an easy question, if the church needs to be devoted to these certain elements and the people are the church, the question then is:

How committed are you to these elements?

Are you committed to doctrine?

Are you committed to fellowship?

Are you committed to the breaking of bread?

Are you committed to prayer?

Or are you more committed to television? Are you more committed to sports? Or are you more committed to just about anything other than doctrine, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayer?

If you’re not sure, let me ask you to consider how much time you spend watching television, participating in sports, or doing anything other than these things.

It’s easy to binge watch something for several hours, it’s easy to play a game for several hours. It’s easy to be distracted by anything, but you show your commitment by how much time you spend engulfed doing something.

So, let me ask you—how much time do you spend learning and meditating on the apostles’ teachings? How much time do you spend investing in and sharing life with other Christians? How often are you taking the time to reflect on your current spiritual condition and make sure that you’re walking in life the way you ought to? How much time are you actually praying to the LORD?

If you are to spiritually grow, you need to be devoted to these elements. You might ask how to do that, so let me offer some suggestions as your application for this point:

To be more committed to doctrine, you need to spend more time reading and studying God’s Word—this needs to be more than just passively listening to God’s Word or occasionally glancing at God’s Word. Commitment to the Word of God looks like digging into the Scriptures every day to study and learn what the original author intended to say to the original audience and then learning to apply it to your life.

To be more committed to fellowship, you need to intentionally spend time with other believers in our church outside of our church services. That would include the fellowship opportunities that we offer—picnics, Altoona Curve games, and meals. That also includes just going to each other’s homes and spending time talking about life and investing in each other.

To be more committed to the breaking of bread, you need to take the Lord’s Supper seriously. Every time we partake in the Lord’s Supper together, I intentionally give time for us all to reflect. The purpose of that time of reflection is for you to think about where you are in your spiritual life, it’s a time to repent from any sins, and it’s a time to praise Jesus for what he has done. But you shouldn’t just be doing this when we take the Lord’s Supper together, you should be doing this every single day. Every day, you should be asking yourself how you’re doing spiritually, every day, you should be repenting from sin, and every day, you should be praising Jesus for what he has done.

To be more committed to prayer, you have to intentionally set time aside to pray to the LORD. This has to be more than just a quick prayer before dinner or a sporadic prayer before bed. Paul tells us to “pray without ceasing.” This is to be a constant communication with the Father through Jesus Christ, you are to pray all day, every day. This is going to be hard at first, so let me encourage you that if your prayer life is seriously lacking right now, set aside a specific time during the day to get away from everything and everyone—no cell phones, let your spouse take care of the kids, no distractions and simply talk to God.

The application for this section is two-fold:

First, commit to prayer, commit to the breaking of bread, commit to fellowship, commit to doctrine. Without doing these things, you cannot grow spiritually.

Second, do this every day as you seek to praise God with one another.

Put simply, Acts 2:37-47 teaches us (1) that the church is built on our belief in Jesus Christ. (2) It is our confession of faith in Jesus that then compels us commit ourselves to prayer, fellowship, communion with God, and doctrine, and (3) we are to intentionally commit ourselves to these elements every day together with glad and generous hearts, in praise to the LORD.

Pastoral Prayer

Congregational Singing

How Firm a Foundation